Understanding Software Updates

[Kops]

Hello everyone,

 

I'd like to get a better understanding of a few aspects of software updates in SCCM, and was hoping that you might be able to help.

 

I am able to go to Software Library > Software Updates > All Software Updates and sort by date to manually find which Windows updates have recently been downloaded. Is there a way to find out which updates are being downloaded for other Products, like Adobe Flash/Reader? We have included these Products in our SUP components but those updates don’t seem to appear in All Software Updates, I’d like to get a better understanding of how these get applied.

 

Another question I have is, why are some updates being expired so quickly? There are some updates here that were released Dec 11^th, and are already expired. What exactly does this mean? I also have some that expired over a month ago. Is there a need for them to remain in my All Software Updates library?

 

Lastly, and maybe this isn’t a Software Updates question, but I see lots of unknown devices in the reporting/statistics of software updates. We have approx. 400-500 PC’s in the environment, and we are seeing somewhere between 700 devices, where 200+ are ‘unknown’. Could these be old entries for computers that have been retired or re-imaged? Is there any way I can get some more information on these/clean them up?

 

Thanks,

Greg

[Peter van der Woude]

Third party updates will only show when they are published via something like SCUP to WSUS. After that enabled the new product to the software update point configuration and sync ConfigMgr.

 

The process for cleaning up expired is very good described here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2012/04/12/software-update-content-cleanup-in-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx

[loserorwinner]

For those Unknown devices, you can check logs on them.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh427342.aspx#BKMK_SU_NAPLog

 

Deployment Monitoring Tool is very helpful.